I’m assuming he means in London, where the Thames did *not* freeze over in 1963:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_1962–1963_in_the_United_Kingdom

Wow! Sounds like an underwater version of the “Killer cold wind” from “The Day After Tomorrow”

Kind of, except for lacking the impossibility of TDAT’s killer cold wind!

In fact, all of the sea-floor organisms in the seas fringing Antarctica are poikilothermic (sp?), i.e. their bodies will be at approximately the same temperature as their environment. This means that their metabolism tends to be pretty slow and therefore also their locomotion is slow. The effect is not so fast that a human diver (for example) would get encased in ice, but for a starfish that has a top speed of less than 1 cm/s it can be a real hazard.

I love this particular optimistic little tidbit. Sure, I guess. Eventually.
Still, that seems kinda like cheerfully telling someone whose home is submerged by floodwaters “Hey! As long as it’s like this, it’ll never catch on fire!”

@85 Nigel Depledge: 1. You can see the refractive effect of the denser fluid travelling down from the newly-forming sea ice (rather like a heat haze, but the density gradient that causes ths refraction is due to cold, not heat).
2. Because the brine is so cold (typically between 0 °C and -15 °C), it often forms tubes of ice as water freezes out of the less-salty water around the brine current. They look like stalactites, but form rather more rapidly, and have freezing-cold brine pouring out of their open ends.
3. Where these currents meet the sea floor, everything freezes, so you get patches of ice on the sea floor, and the ice encases everything that is too slow to move out of the way.

Wow! Sounds like an underwater version of the “Killer cold wind” from “The Day After Tomorrow”

Vaccines!

I guess that is why they call this blog. Discover.

I just wonder if the dilution of the Atlantic current is what’s driving the cold winter in Europe this year,,,or is that just another side effect of el nino/la nina?(dang, I have trouble keeping those two compartmentalized)(and spelling them right)

Gary 7

I’m writing an alternate history and when it gets to the LIA, there is no huge Mongolian conquest. This references the theory that Genghis Khan contributed to LIA by the slaughter of so many people. I was counting on the people staying alive to prevent reforestation and reducing the severity (or delaying the severity) of the LIA for some time.

This really shoots my grand plan in the foot. DAMN IT. DAMN IT. DAMN IT.

The reforestation of land in American tropical regions alone would have accounted for 1/4 of the temperature drop.

Interesting.

I used to think of myself as a climate change denier. The last few years, I’ve become convinced that it is a real problem (science trumps flawed rhetoric). However, climate change scientists have not yet impressed me with a real solution to the problem.

Eh?

Why should it be up to climatologists to come up with solutions to a man-made problem that they have identified but are being obstructed in disseminating?

As it happens, there are a great many talented scientists and engineers working on various solutions, from sustainable energy generation to carbon sequestration to geoengineering.

The ice in both polar regions is fresh water because it falls as snow or freezing rain then accumulates on top of the existing ice. Salt water freezes in laboratory conditions but the sea does not provide the water for the ice caps.

The polar sea ice does indeed have a low salt content, but it is wrong to say that none of it comes from the sea.

Sea water does freeze. As it freezes, the salt gets concentrated in patches of very salty brine that remain liquid. I have seen video footage of downpours of brine from accumulating sea ice in the Antarctic. As the brine, being denser than the seawater around it, descends, several phenomena are observable:

1. You can see the refractive effect of the denser fluid travelling down from the newly-forming sea ice (rather like a heat haze, but the density gradient that causes ths refraction is due to cold, not heat).

2. Because the brine is so cold (typically between 0 °C and -15 °C), it often forms tubes of ice as water freezes out of the less-salty water around the brine current. They look like stalactites, but form rather more rapidly, and have freezing-cold brine pouring out of their open ends.

3. Where these currents meet the sea floor, everything freezes, so you get patches of ice on the sea floor, and the ice encases everything that is too slow to move out of the way.

Love the ongoing discourse…

Perhaps I’ve missed this being discussed here, but:

1. Over the course of the 4.5 billion years of earths history, what is the “right” temperature?

There isn’t one, unless you have built a massively interdependent social infrastructure that depends on the climate being the same all the time.

Oh, look what we humans have gone and done . . .

2. Is global warming (by whatever source) always a bad thing?

No, unless you have built a massively interdependent social infrastructure that depends on the climate being the same all the time.

Most particularly, GW that occurs naturally tends to occur over many thousands of years, which gives life more time to adapt. Having said that, most of the large swings of climate in Earth’s history coinicde with mass extinctions.

3. Are the following items as important as the negative effects of GW ?

Advantages of Global Warming

Arctic, Antarctic, Siberia, and other frozen regions of earth may experience more plant growth and milder climates.

This does not outweight any of the principle negative effects (at least, not from a human perspective).

The next ice age may be prevented from occurring.

Hey, if an ice age is starting, we know how to prevent it (dig up sequestered CO2 and burn fossil carbon), so the possibility that we have already prevented its occurence does not outweigh the principle negative effects of GW (at least, not from a human perspective).

Northwest Passage through Canada’s formerly-icy north opens up to sea transportation.

This is trivial.

Less need for energy consumption to warm cold places.

This is outweighed by the increased energy consumption to cool warm places (even now, Californians use more energy on air conditioning than they do on heating). Remember that the Tropics cover a substantially larger area of the globe than areas within the Arctic and Antarctic Circles.

Fewer deaths or injuries due to cold weather.

Outweighed by the greater number of deaths due to heatstroke etc.

Even now, a particularly hot summer in Europe (2010) has been identified as the cause of several tens of thousands of deaths.

Longer growing seasons could mean increased agricultural production in some local areas.

Substantially outweighed by (a) the loss of some of the world’s most fertile land to rising sea level; (b) the loss of some of the world’s most fertile land to persistent drought, and (c) loss of agricultural yields due to more frequent extreme weather events (floods, hurricanes, droughts etc.).

Mountains increase in height due to melting glaciers, becoming higher as they rebound against the missing weight of the ice.

In what way is this any kind of advantage?

Boundary disputes between countries over low-lying islands will disappear.

Outweighed by many orders of magnitudes by the disputes that will be caused by migrating refugees and wars over water supplies.

In short, your proposed benefits of GW are all trivial in comparison with the most likely drawbacks of GW.

I stand by my statement. The single most important factor in Earth’s climate, [sic] is the change in it’s [sic] albedo over time. Period. .

Hmm … So melting reflective ice at our planet’s poles and thereby replacing a surface that reflects 80% of the solar radiation hitting it with one that instead absorbs 80% of the same rays – changing from polar ice sheets to open ocean – would do what then?

Albedo is a powerful feedback – once it starts. But it isn’t the sole factor in determining our climate.

***

“Without our atmosphere the Earth’s average temperature would be minus eighteen degrees Celsius.”
- Dr Alan Longstaff, ‘Astronomy Now’ magazine July 2007.

I stand by my statement. The single most important factor in Earth’s climate, [sic] is the change in it’s [sic] albedo over time. Period.

YES, DEAR!

Gore’s flawed movie is examined – along with Durkins here :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WON-s00GIsU

The Gore factor is also addressed here :

http://www.skepticalscience.com/al-gore-inconvenient-truth-errors.htm

with this :

http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period-intermediate.htm

dealing with the idea the Medieval Warm Period was warmer.

Linked to my name is a videoclip running through the history of our growing understanding of the HIRGO issue including material from 1956 – fifty years before Gore’s movie.

Have you ever wondered why the GISTEMP and HadCRUT data showed a major increase in temperatures for the last 30 years, but none of the oceanic or satellite data have the same data slope?

Can we have a better class of troll, please? This one’s clearly never bothered to actually look at the data, or else assumes nobody else will.

What exactly did you publish in 1998 about the Little Ice Age and how was that in conflict with Michael Mann’s “hocky stick” that attempted to eliminate the LIA from the historical climate data? Does the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” ring any bells with you? Phil, it does get so confusing when historical data keeps changing…

Sometimes we learn things that change our views. Sometimes we find that what we used to think isn’t the case after all.

Al Gore and his movie are latecomers to the issue. Gore didn’t invent climate change only exploited it. His Inconvenient Truth movie’ is irrelevant to the *science* of Human Induced Rapid Gobal Overheating although it is notable in the politics and histroy of rasing people’s awareness about it.

HIRGO is based on basic physiscs of gases and an idea that Svante Arrrhenius had back in 1896. It has survived numerous peer-reviewed challenges and is supported by a mountain of multiple lines of evidence from oceanographic measurements to glacial records to biological studies to satellite observations etc ..

We are learning more all the time. Some of what we’re learning is pretty worrying for instance the faster than expected decline in Arctic sea ice extent.

When the facts have changed, doesn’t it make sense to change our opinions to suit the facts rather than attempt the impossibility of changing the facts to suit our views?

If you wish to disprove the consensus of 98% of climatologists you are going to need some extraordinary evidence to do so.

Are you offering any of that or just a Yes dear shunt1?

@71. shunt1 – February 2nd, 2012 at 3:15 am :

Have you ever wondered why the GISTEMP and HadCRUT data showed a major increase in temperatures for the last 30 years, but none of the oceanic or satellite data have the same data slope? Why was there a very high temperature spike above Norway in their anomaly plots for last year, that the satellites and ARGOS data did not see?
Never mind, you do not want to know…

Actually I *do* want to know. Do you have a link or the name of a specific paper from apeer reviewed scientific journal or something like that to back up your seemingly unsupported word here please?

@70. shunt1 Says:

Long story.. When GISTEMP amd HadCRUT decided to alter historical temperature data that I personally recorded while serving at WSMR, I got damn angry.

Please tell us. Specifically and with names and actual specifics.

“Boundary disputes between countries over low-lying islands will disappear.” [Quoting #12. F16 guy - ed.]
Now that is some serious trolling. As entire low-lying nation disappear beneath the waves, will you be hosting the refugees at your house? And when we spend a few trillion on sea walls to protect our coastal cities, you’ll be picking up the bill, right?

Plus there’s always the possibility of conflict happening over the salvage rights and underseas mining too.

When GISTEMP amd HadCRUT decided to alter historical temperature data that I personally recorded while serving at WSMR, I got damn angry.

You wouldn’t, by any chance, by referring to the statistical bias correction they applied to the data to compensate for issues introducing by gridding, would you? I sincerely hope not.

Have you ever wondered why the GISTEMP and HadCRUT data showed a major increase in temperatures for the last 30 years, but none of the oceanic or satellite data have the same data slope?

No, we know why the slopes aren’t exactly the same, and it is due to things like differences in sampling density in different regions.

Have you ever wondered why they all show same general trend if you are right that some are intentionally falsified while others are not?

Also, are you going to retract your misrepresentation of modeling or are you hoping we forgot about it. Because we haven’t.

I think we’ve been so inundated by this FoxNews-ization of media that many of us naturally default to thinking of any issue in terms of rhetorical debate rather than fact-finding. If you’re a candidate debating other candidates seeking an office, then yeah, if you criticize a plan, you’re expected to have an alternative. In pretty much every other situation, though, it’s important to make careful distinctions between issues, in this case, the phenomenon and our response to it.

I wonder. If Al Gore never existed, would folks like your dad (and mine) be any less intransigent?

Ok, now I KNOW you’re a troll.
Enjoy the revisionist world you’ve created for yourself. It sounds… colorful.